China and the Sea

China’s mercantile reach is everywhere. It is a major factor in global trade with the United States and Europe, international monetary activity and debt financing, and the geo-political, social and economic impacts to much of the globe, as well as an increasing concern with their maritime ambitions.

Would you rather listen to this episode? Visit World Ocean Radio.

___________________________________________________________________________

The newspapers these days carry more and more frequent reports of China’s new-found interest in the sea. For example, recently, two Chinese coastal patrol vessels were dispatched to a group small, uninhabited islands south of Okinawa to assert, according to the New China News Agency, the country’s “sovereignty” in a dispute with Japan. Known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, these islands have long been administered by Japan; indeed several of them are privately owned by Japanese investors who announced recently that they were transferring ownership officially to the Japanese government, the apparent provocation for the Chinese response. Such sensitivities are evident in additional conflicts between China and the Philippines, Taiwan, Viet Nam, and the United States, which is increasingly concerned with the maritime ambitions of China as expressed through its rapid build-up of naval forces with capacity far beyond simple coastal protection. If you look at each situation closely, you will probably find each territorial aspiration linked less to sovereignty and more to the protection of China’s trade or the extension of China’s exclusive economic zone and its authority over underwater resources such as fertile fishing grounds, minerals, oil and gas.

China’s mercantile reach is everywhere. It is a major factor in global trade with the United States and Europe, international monetary activity and debt financing, and the geo-political and social impacts of its economic incursion into Africa, India, and South America with its ever-growing need for export supply of its manufactured goods and import demand of fossil fuel and raw materials in excess of its own inventory. Its paradoxical posturing as a “developing economy” while becoming the second largest economic engine in the world does not conceal its insatiable appetite for commercial relationships in every corner of the earth.

Almost all of this exchange is transported physically by ship. And successful passage depends on several geographical places – the Straits of Hormuz, the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, and the Malacca Strait near Singapore – “narrows” that might be highly vulnerable to physical and political forces not always within China’s control. About four-fifths of China’s energy imports, for example, must pass through Malacca; imagine what it would mean if for some reason that seaway was inhibited or closed.

Thus, according to an article in a recent Economist Magazine (Sept 1, 2012), China has shown an aggressive interest in what is called “the Northern Sea Route” above Russia and its North American counterpart, “the Northwest Passage.” These waterways have been seasonally impassable due to impenetrable Arctic ice. But recently, global warming, a function of our changing climate, has increased polar melt to permit large ship passage during the summer months. In 2010, only four ships used the Northern Sea Route; this year 34 passed through. Increasing temperature, continuing polar melt, sea level rise, and other changing climate conditions are contributors to increasing access to a transportation route than will reduce the voyage from Shanghai to Hamburg by 4,000 miles. This is more than an idle speculation and suggests the saving of real time and cost.  As reported in the UK Guardian in September, the European Space Agency’s satellite observations have confirmed long standing predictions by the Polar Science Center that the rate of loss of Arctic sea ice is “50% higher than most scenarios outlined by polar scientists and suggests that global warming, triggered by rising greenhouse gas emissions, is beginning to have a major impact on the region,” suggesting that if the current annual loss continues, summer ice coverage could disappear completely by 2016. This may explain why China is contributing heavily to Arctic research and has applied for permanent observer status in the Arctic Council, the inter-governmental forum that facilitates the Arctic policy discussion.

China’s mercantile reach is everywhere. It is a major factor in global trade with the United States and Europe, international monetary activity and debt financing, and the geo-political, social and economic impacts to much of the globe, as well as an increasing concern with their maritime ambitions.

I have conducted my own informal poll about this situation in the aisles of a local Wal-Mart store where I randomly ask shoppers where they think much of the stuff on the shelves comes from. They typically respond “China.” But when I ask how did it get there, they typically do not understand the vast complexity and urgency of the maritime transportation system that supports the global distribution of Chinese goods. These American customers may not be aware, nor perhaps are the Chinese workers, but both governments are and therein lies the motivation for diplomatic negotiations, geopolitical concerns, and even the threatening deployment of ships in faraway places as China claims a new relationship with the sea. _____________________________________________________________________

Peter Neill, Director of the W2O and host of World Ocean Radio, provides coverage of a broad spectrum of ocean issues from science and education to advocacy and exemplary projects.

 

 

 

Resources:

Straits of Hormuz
Suez Canal
Panama Canal
Malacca Strait (near Singapore)
Economist Magazine (Sept. 1, 2012)
Northern Sea Route
Northwest Passage
New China News Agency (Xinhua)